Brown Malt Porter

Brown malt has fascinated me since I learned of its prominent place in brewing historical porter. Originally comprising up to one hundred percent of porter grists, it was eventually replaced by black malt, coupled with a simple pale malt base. This type of brown malt has now disappeared, but the product now available under this name--and I'm unsure of exactly what separates it from the original--adds a wonderfully roasty, not-too-burnt character to dark beers. While I haven't geeked out on it as hard as I have on rye malt, brown malt has definitely captured my imagination.

About a year ago I started listening regularly to the Brewing Network, particularly the Session, picking and choosing my way through the archives. In the fall, I was taken by an interview they did with a pro brewer (from Round Guys, maybe?) who used forty percent brown malt in his brown porter. This sounded like nothing so much as a gauntlet thrown down, daring me to load up a sessionable porter with brown malt. I dutifully took up that challenge.

This beer pretty much topped out the original gravity of the BJCP guidelines for the smallest porter category (for those who are incredibly concerned about such metrics), but it included in a full four-tenths proportion of Crisp's brown malt. Aside from a bit of pale chocolate malt to round out the roast profile, the rest of the grist was pale malt. A simple low bittering addition of Phoenix, a newer British hop varietal, was all that went into (most of) this recipe. Wyeast's West Yorkshire Ale yeast gave it a particularly British character. This batch also received a dosing of Clarity-Ferm prior to fermentation to break down the gluten and make it suitable for DeAunn's gluten-intolerant consumption. While it seemed to help initially, eventually we found that this product still left too much gluten in the final beer for her to enjoy without experiencing gluten-related side effects. Back to messing around with cider, mead, and sorghum, then.

Further experimenting with this batch, one gallon went into a cubitainer with dry hops for cask conditioning (with which I've experimented before) and another gallon into a 5-liter mini keg, for which my father constructed a tap system, based on this design. Unfortunately, these innovations didn't work out quite as planned, either. I never have quite the luck I'd like with the cubitainers; this time, it began to leak when the internal pressure exceeded what the container would take. In addition, all the dry hops seemed to add--loose in the cubitainer as they were--was a bit of plant material that got stuck in one's teeth while taking a drink. The kegging setup had me a bit flummoxed, as I have little experience with force carbonation. I tried
to use high pressure (30 psi) carb method for a short period, combined with shaking, to get CO2 into solution, as one would do with a corny keg. The tap setup for the mini keg did not allow for as tight a seal as a corny, so attempting this carbonation method ended up with me hosed down with porter and emptying both

disposable CO2 cartridges I had without reaching proper carbonation. Next time, I'll use a lower pressure for a longer time. After letting the keg sit for better than a month in the fridge, figuring I'd oxidized the hell out of it with all the shaking, I dumped it; upon sampling what came out of the bung, not only was it partially carbonated--and kind of at a perfect cask carb--but it was still in great shape. Live and learn.

Fortunately, I had a number of bottles of this porter that were naturally carbonated. They're all gone now, but the best descriptor for this beer was "luscious." It was an easy drinking, sturdy porter with great chocolate and roast notes. This fall I'll probably brew this one again just as the recipe stands; especially now that I have a better handle on how the mini keg functions, this will be a great beer to have around once the weather turns cold again.

Brown Malt Porter

Batch size: 6 gallons
Projected OG: 1.052
Projected SRM: 25.3
Projected IBU: 21.4
Boil time: 60 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 89%

Grains
55.0% - 5.5 lbs Malteurop 2-row
40.0% - 4 lbs Crisp Brown malt
5.0% - 8 oz Crisp Pale chocolate

Hops
.7 oz Phoenix (10.2%) (60 min)
.3 oz Phoenix (10.2%) (dry hop in 1-gal cubitainer - 5 days)

Yeast
WY1469 - harvested from Wet Hop ‘13, 1.2 qt starter

Extras
1 vial Clarity Ferm (post chilling, pre yeast)

Water additions (mash)
9 qts distilled water
1 g Epsom salts
1 g Baking soda
1 g CaCl

Brewday: 4 January 2014
Mash: 154F for 60 minutes

Pre-boil volume: 7 gallons
Pre-boil SG: 10.8P (1.044)

Fermented at 60F ambient for 4 days, then moved to 70F ambient to free rise.  Active fermentation mostly finished by that point.

Bottled: 1 February 2014
FG: 1.019
ABV: 4.3%

Bottled 5l in mini keg, 1 gallon in cubitainer with .5 oz table sugar and dry hops; and remainder with 2.8 oz table sugar.

RIS III

As of last week, I am now a Doctor of Musical Arts. What does this have to do with homebrewing and/or blogging? It means I've now finished my terminal degree, so

1) I now have time to brew again.

2) I now have time to catch up on writing about what I've managed to brew in the last few months.

This first post back brings us to a special beer in my brewing calendar: Russian imperial stout. I designated every quarter-century brew as a gargantuan dark beer; while the "even-numbered" ones (#50 and #100, so far) have been imperial porters, this batch (#125) marks my third foray into the biggest entries of the stout family. The previous two iterations (the first predating this blog) have been immensely satisfying, and I'm down to my last bottle of each; after giving this latest batch a few months to age, I'll plan a vertical tasting.

This time around, the aim was for an even bigger, roastier stout. I eliminated all crystal malt, limiting non-base grains to roasted malts. Using a reiterated mash boosted efficiency well above what I expected based on the previous batches; I'd planned to add a pound of turbinado to raise the gravity and drive down the final gravity, but found it entirely unnecessary given the high

OG. It finished out higher than intended, but the high percentage of roasted grains really helped balance this beer. Next time around, I'll work toward an even lower FG and increase the bittering hops to help maintain balance over an even longer term.

I'm sampling my first bottle now; unfortunately it hasn't yet carbonated, but I'll happily reyeast these bottles if the need arises. I'm still working through technical issues with some of my other recipes (more on that soon), but in terms of this series, thing are going well. This beer almost makes me look forward to next winter already.

RIS III

Batch size: 5 gallons
Projected OG: 1.118
Projected SRM: 65.2
Projected IBU: 68.0
Boil time: 120 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 70.5%

Grains/Fermentables
79.2% - 19 lb Malteurop 2-row
12.5% - 3 lb Crisp Brown malt
8.3% - 2 lb Crisp Roasted Barley
1 lb Turbinado sugar (5 days into primary)

Hops
1 oz Phoenix (10.2%) (120 min)
1 oz Columbus (14.5%) (120 min)
1 oz Sterling (7.0%) (15 min)

Yeast
2 pkg US-05, rehydrated

Extras
1 tsp Yeast nutrient (10 min)
1 vial Clarity Ferm (post chilling, pre yeast)

Water additions
15 qts distilled water (mash #1)
1 g Epsom salts (mash #2)
1 g Salt (mash #2)
1 g Baking soda (mash #2)
1 g Chalk (mash #2)

Brewday: 30 November 2013

Reiterated mash
Mash #1 (12 lb 2-row): 150F for 20 minutes
Volume: 7.5 gallons
Run off to secondary pots; hold at 150F
Mash #2 (remainder of grist): Mash #1 liquor @ 145F for 90 minutes - dropped to 141F
pH: 5.0
Draw off & boil 1 gallon, add back to raise mash temp to 154F for 15 minutes
    Only raised it to 145F; drew off 2 more gallons & boiled, reaching 156F
Mashout - draw off & boil 2.5 gallons, add back to raise mash temp to 168F for 5 minutes
Pre-boil volume: 7.5 gallons
Pre-boil SG: 19.8P (1.083)

Aerated for 1 hour prior to pitching yeast, then again 6 hours after pitching.
Fermented in swamp cooler at 61F.
SNA: added additional 1 tsp yeast nutrient (boiled & cooled) at 24 hours, then 48 hours  into active fermentation.

After active fermentation slowed, pulled from swamp cooler & brought to 65F ambient to continue working. Agitated daily to keep yeast in suspension.

Secondary: 31 December 2013
SG: 1.032
Bulk age for at least 2 months.

Dry hop: 12 April 2014
Accidentally used the 2 oz EKG intended for the Burton ale. Will give it a week or so, then bottle.

Bottled: 23 April 2014
FG: 1.032
ABV: 11.3%
Bottled with 3.5 oz table sugar and rehydrated champagne yeast.